They now offer advice about how to
use the latest in U.S. law to change status from illegal
alien to permanent legal resident after arrival.

Using the Spanish-language media,
Mexican consulates in California, Arizona, Texas and
Illinois are advertising the benefits of the soon-to-be
issued U-visa directly to individuals they know are
in the U.S. illegally.

The "outreach" effort, known
as
"The Mexico Project", is currently a year-long
pilot program of the Mexican government's Secretaría de
Relaciones Exteriores and The Center for Human Rights
and Constitutional Law (CHRCL)
in Los Angeles. If successful, the 'Project' will
be expanded to all
47 Mexican consulates in the U.S.

CHRCL is operated by immigration
lawyer
Peter Schey. Easily the most influential immigration
litigator ever, Mr. Schey's victories include
Plyler V Doeand a judicial defeat of Prop 187
in district court which became law when Gray Davis
refused to appeal the loss. Also, in Catholic Social
Services v. Meese (113 S.Ct. 2485, U.S. Supreme Court),
he obtained an amnesty for some 250,000 who had failed
to qualify for the '86
Reagan amnesty. This case was settled by the
Department of Homeland Security following fifteen years
(!) of litigation.

In Lopez v. INS, Cv. No.
78-1912-WB(xJ) he expanded
the right to legal counsel for persons arrested by
the INS. This affects over 1 million individuals per
year who now must be provided written advice of their
legal rights, including their right to apply for
political asylum, and, for certain nationalities, a
period of time to consult with attorneys.

As if to parody the
worst suspicions about those who call themselves
"human rights" lawyers,
the
class action warrior (send
him mail) brags in his
resume that his "litigation against the federal
government has resulted in the largest attorney fee
awards in the country". Essentially, the U.S.
taxpayer has paid for much of Mr. Schey's yacht and
million dollar home in the toney mid-Wilshire
neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Still, I have a feeling the public
may soon be learning more about the
U-Visa.

A grab bag of immigration law under
two new visas, the
T-visa and the U-visa, has emerged from the
quintessentially Clinton era Victims of Trafficking and
Violence Protection Act of 2000 (which includes the
Violence Against Women Act of 2000).

Immigration lawyers reaching into
this grab bag are finding almost anything they pull out
can be applied to many of their clients.

Was your illegal alien client
merely asked by someone to commit perjury, asked to
participate in "conspiracy", solicited for
"abusive sexual contact" or threatened with being
held against her will? Does your client feel he or she
is working under a labor agreement or contract that can
be shown to be fraudulent?

If so, there may be a T or U visa
waiting!

Click here [PDF]
to see the welcome letter a T-Visa holder gets from the
U.S. government. All of this—plus the T-Visa winner
becomes a client of the federal Office of Refugee
Resettlement (ORR)! This means access to
refugee-specific government programs in addition to
normal welfare programs—and, of course, it also
means more federal contracting dollars for the refugee
NGOs.

T-visas were first handed out in
2002. Implementing regulations for the U-visa have not
been finalized, but about 2,000 "deferred action"
papers have been issued pending implementation of the
new visa. Like the T-Visa, it is a direct route to
legal permanent residence for illegal aliens present in
the U.S. who are "crime victims."

Some of the vague qualifying
characteristics of victimhood are the same for the T and
U visas. Applicants over the age of 18 must make a
statement to the effect that they are willing to
cooperate in a criminal investigation. There doesn't
have to be a conviction for a crime nor even an
investigation to meet this qualification, just a stated
willingness to talk if asked.

One of the main attractions of the
U-Visa is that eligibility includes
victims of domestic violence. It is this
qualification that the "Mexico Project" has
chosen to exploit.

A recent study of Latina immigrants
in Washington, D.C., found that nearly half were in
relationships abusive enough to qualify for a
court's protective order, according to Leslye Orloff, an
immigration expert for the NOW Legal Defense Fund (from
"Lifetime Prevalence of Violence Against Latina
Immigrants: Legal and Policy Implications," NOW
Legal Defense and Education Fund, 2000) . Also, the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found for an asylum
applicant whose lawyers successfully argued that
domestic violence
in Mexico is "pervasive,
officially tolerated, and in some areas, legally
approved". (Aguirre-Cervantes
v. INS, No. 99-70861, Mar. 21, 2001).

If more of these family values are
not stopped from
crossing the Rio Grande, the U.S. will have to
nationalize the American family.

We can only hope the U-visa
implementing regulations are slow in coming because the
regulation writers are working out ways to blunt the
"open floodgates" potential of the flaky new visa.

Meanwhile, as the "Mexico
Project" nears the end of its pilot phase, Peter
Schey has just announced a
class action lawsuit against the U.S. government for
failure to implement the visa fast enough.

Congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee
(D-Tx), a supporter of the U-visa lawsuit,
asks whyit takes "five years to implement
a law that Congress debated and implemented in a few
months?"

Perhaps more debate was needed in
the first place?

Of course, little is being debated
on ways (like
border control) to keep abusers away while the
abused are given a free pass to stay in the U.S.

But then this never really was
about concern for
victims of domestic violence—if it were, the
"Mexico Project" would be headquartered in, well…
Mexico.